Saturday Onsite Presentation Session 2 Japanese Studies

Session Chair: Changzoo Song

11:25-11:50

70737 | Re-conceptualizing

Cross-Border Tourism: Tourist Cities in Japan and Dynamics of Nationalism

Jihyuk Park, Syracuse University, United States

As an attempt to explore the international relationship between South Korea and Japan from the lens of performative landscape of nationalism, my ongoing doctoral project focuses on the cross-border tourism between two countries. This presentation discusses the theoretical framework for my thesis centered on two novel contributions to the cross-border studies. Firstly, it broadens the geographic focus of border studies beyond physical line of state borders and their immediate surroundings to encompass wider range of tourist cities. The rapidly growing tourism industry across the Korea-Japan border over the past few decades has been accompanied by the expanded transportation options such as aviation and shipping that connected different local cities directly. Since those tourist destinations are the places where dynamics of nationalism is made by direct face-to-face interactions, these local regions can be recognized as border spaces. Secondly, the project seeks to shift the focus of tourism research from a traditional perspective of political economy to one that incorporates cultural considerations. The Korea-Japan cross-border tourism industry is not solely driven by political and economic factors but also involves cultural aspects such as identity, emotions, and memory. Therefore, to pursue more nuanced research of cross-border tourism, diverse contexts of nationalism should be considered. This process of exploring new approaches and perspectives can help to shed light on the complex interplay between various factors that shape cross-border tourism. Also, based on this establishment of theoretical foundations, the one-year fieldwork scheduled to begin from this fall is expected to be clearer and more organized.

11:50-12:15

68510

| Article 9 and Ontological Origins of Japan’s Security: Case Studies from the 1990s

Anastasiya Polishchuk, Waseda University, Japan

With the existing security issues aggravating and new security challenges emerging in the post-Cold War era, the Japanese security posture has had to change. Yet, despite the incremental alterations undertaken by the Japanese government over the last three decades and continuous debates around constitutional revision, Article 9 of the Japanese constitution stands untouched. The existing realist and constructivist approaches have succeeded in explaining either the transformations of Tokyo’s security policies or the sturdiness of Japanese security identity, omitting to account for the fluctuations in Japanese security measures. This research examines what prevented Japan from amending Article 9 in the 1990s while still allowing the state to alter its legislation and strengthen its defense capabilities. The study intends to illustrate through qualitative content analysis of the Diet deliberations that, although threat perception appears as a significant stimulus for policy alterations, variation in Japanese national security policy has its roots in Japan’s pursuit of ontological security. This work contributes to a better understanding of Japanese security policymaking, assisting in fathoming out the current reforms and making predictions about Japan’s security metamorphosis in the future. Moreover, this paper enhances the theoretical foundation for operationalizing ontological security in international relations.

12:15-12:40

68493 | Shining Under the Glass Ceiling: How Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party’s “Women’s Affairs Division” Keeps Women in Their Place

Antonija Cavcic, Toyo University, Japan

With consistently poor results in annual gender equality reports as well as within the context of raising awareness of SDGs in Japan, it is reasonable to suggest that gender equality goals should be one of Japan’s top priorities. Data has shown that economies and companies which best harness female talent are the most productive, innovative and prosperous, but in 2018, women in Japan held only about 15% of management-level roles, while in the U.S. and U.K., the share exceeded 35%. This is even after former prime minister Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) introduced “Womenomics” in 2013, which intended to create an environment in which women find it comfortable to work and enhance opportunities for women to work and to be active. Perhaps in an attempt to appeal as a party which is trying to improve or embrace diversity, the LDP recently bolstered the “Liberal Democratic Women’s Affairs Division”. However, to what extent does the division genuinely embrace diversity and encourage women’s participation in the workplace and politics? In this presentation, I reveal the findings of a critical discourse analysis of the Women’s Affairs Division’s official website and PR activities to demonstrate how the division’s efforts in actuality reinforce conservative, pro-natalist ideology, and ironically “keep women in their place.”

12:40-13:05

68509 | Goodwill Beyond the Shades of Nationalism and Racism: The Pacifist Wishes of Japanese Wives Left in Post-colonial Korea Changzoo Song, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Though socially avoided, marriages between Japanese and Koreans were not unusual in the 1930s and 1940s. It was even ideologically supported by the Japanese Empire to assimilate its Korean colonial subjects. Interracial marriages between Korean men and Japanese women were also facilitated by the socio-demographic realities in Japan after the Second Sino-Japanese War: as more Japanese men left for battlefields, more Korean men were brought to Japan to work for factories, mines, and other wartime industries. In this deficit of Japanese males, some Japanese women chose to marry Korean men who were around. With the end of the Pacific War, most Korean husbands returned to Korea, and many Japanese wives followed them to Korea. Though the great majority returned to Japan after the 1965 diplomatic normalization between Japan and Korea, over a thousand stayed in Korea for various reasons including being refused by their Japanese family members in Japan. Though most of them have passed away by now, some of their life histories can be retrieved from numerous media reports and documentaries. Typically, having lived in poverty, family violence, and racial hostilities, most of these old women show their ‘internationalist’ goodwill to contribute to the welfare of their adopted home and promote peace between the two peoples of Japan and Korea. Focusing on the turning points in their life histories, this paper explores the process of their developing such ‘internationalist’ wishes.